Sunday, October 31, 2010

Caution! Do not read this post on an empty stomach

The first sign of Fall around here is when the Robins allmore or less suddenly disappear at the end of August,beginning of September. The first birds to return in theSpring from their Winter down south somewhere andthe first to head back down there at Summer's end.

Well, most of them anyways.

We have a Mountain Ash tree in our back yard and thisyear it is loaded with berries. The berries are still fairlyhard because they haven't fully ripened yet, but that isnot something that concerns the birds who gorge them-selves on them. There have been a half dozen or moreRobins who have put their vacations down south onhold while they do their very best to strip the tree of it'sAutumn bounty.

Robins are so common around here and they aren'tthe most handsomest of birds, red breasts notwithstanding, but this picture I took from our dinningroom window of this fellow in our tree looks prettygood with the red of his feathers and the red of theberries and the red of the changing leaves all around.

And following the red theme even further ... this is oneof the cherry trees at the front of our house. Theseberries are also quite hard and since they are also quitea bit bigger then the Mountain Ash's berries they don'tget eaten as early in the season. In late Winter andearly Spring the Robins and the Ceder Waxwings willdevour these bright red globes as fast as they canswallow. In the meanwhile we have the berries hangingon the bare limbs of the trees for color and for ourenjoyment during the dull, cold days of Winter.

I love RED!!

I've been stitching away on Halloween Quaker thisweek and enjoying working on the little motifs asa break from the larger ones with the ... uh ... lessthen enthralling borders.

Don't you just love that little bat with the BIG eyes?So cute. I love the little off white accents in thisdesign which add just a little extra oomph to thewhole piece. There are a couple of pumpkins tostitch of course and I considered stitching those ina shade of orange of some kind, but in the end Idecided to keep to the designer's vision of how thisshould look.

What I've been up to this past summerand Fall -an ongoing report .....

Regarding the trip to the Mennonite Fall Fair atBlack Creek Pioneer Village in September. There is onemajor reason why we love going to this fair whenever wecan. It's not just the ambiance, or the quilt auction, orthe costumed volunteers demonstrating various skillsand activities in the buildings. No, it's not even for theride in the horse drawn wagon.

What is the real honest to goodness, justbetween us, reason why we go to this fair??

It's the FOOD!!

Check this out!!! The Mennonite folk arrive at thefair every year with tons of delicious home made food forthe enjoyment of us dedicated fair goers. Home madebread, cakes, pies, cookies and other delectable delights.You can buy whole loaves of bread, or entire pies etc totake home with you or you can buy slices of this or thatand eat them right there and then.

Pie anyone??? How many flavors can you spy there??

There are also booths set up selling food cookedon the spot. So, having been doing this for years we haveour agenda all thought out and ready to follow. First stop... the booth selling back bacon and a fried egg on a bun.Then we hit the booth selling spring rolls which werethree per plate and came with a home made sweet sauce.

That's me noshing down on my back bacon andfried egg on a bun. MMMMmmmmmm!!!!!

Then it was time for a sweet. Deep fried rosettes withhome made strawberry preserves and home made icecream on top!!

After that we took a break from eating and beganto walk around the village, taking in the sights and lettingour first course settle. I think that I had a cup of hotapple cider during this time because after all there'snothing like apple cider to put you in the mood forFall, right??

In one building a couple of ladies were busymaking bread. There is an outdoor brick oven to bakethese yummy loaves of whole grain goodness and theflavor of these is unbelievable. You can put in an orderto buy a loaf or two when they're done if you like butyou have to be there pretty early in the day to do sobecause they sell out in no time.

Is this what it looks like when you're bakingbread at your house Barbara???

After seeing (and smelling) the bread making andbaking we decided that it was time to have something elsegood to eat. After all it had to have been at least forty fiveminutes since we'd last had something good to eat.

Another highlight of the day is the open fire pitwhere chicken legs and thighs are roasted to a lovelygolden brown and then offered to hungry foodies ...like us!!

From left to right: Darlene, Helen and I enjoyingour finger lickin' good roast chicken legs.

After that we decided to have a veggie so thatwe could at least say that we'd had a balanced mealthat day. Corn on the cob, dipped in melted butterand sprinkled with salt. Sounds healthy doesn't it?

After all that... er ... healthy eating (!!) we ofcourse had to have a desert. We planned on a sliceof pie (see photo at beginning of this report) butwere horrified and dismayed to discover that thetables formerly covered in pie slices were now bare.Not a flake of pastry or a bit of fruit left in sight.

Another cooking demonstration that wefound was making beet butter. I think I mentioned thisstuff in a previous post. It was so delicious, hot from thepot and spread on little biscuits taken hot and freshfrom the brick oven, that it just bears mentioningagain. Sweet, sticky and delicious!

Here are Helen and Darlene about to helpthemselves to their share of the beet butter samples.There was also pickled beets and eggs soaked inbeet juice that we were encouraged to taste.

At the end of the afternoon, having walked (andeaten) our way all around the village we were tired andready to head home. The booths were mostly sold out offood anyways so there was no added incentive to stay.But just before we left the village proper and headedoff to the gift shop we stopped at the back bacon on abun booth and bought one more round for the road.Why no, we have no shame! Why do you ask?

In the gift shop located near the exit to thevillage and in the old merchant store in the villageitself you can buy old fashioned candy and othertreats. You know, just in case you get peckish onyour way home.

I've been busy reading several awesome booksin the past few weeks and have ripped through thesetotally awesome stories as fast as time allowed. Thefirst is book two in this series by Jacqueline Carey.As usual wonderful characters, enthralling story, andincredible imagination for creating a world fromgeography to mythology and traditions make MsCarey's books fabulous reads for any fantasy lover.

And for those of you who enjoy their knitting,or who love stories with characters that you fall in lovewith and come to believe in totally then this one is foryou. Loved this one sooo much I immediately went online looking for sequels and anything else by Kate Jacobsthat I could find. If she'd published her weekly shoppinglists in a series of books I think that I'd have bought 'em!!Yes, she's that good!

**************************************************Monday night was election night here in Ontario.We voted for our choices for local government includingMayor, councilors and school trustees. Except thatour mayor got in by acclamation because no one ranagainst him.

But what our local election campaign lacked indrama and excitement was more then made up for aswe watched the goings on down in the big city ofToronto where the Mayoral candidates have been goingat each other hammer and tongs since last January.Fun to watch, but I wouldn't want to live there.

It was reported in our local newspaper thatonly 25 % of our areas eligible voters actuallybothered to turn out to vote. It wasn't raining, therewasn't a foot of snow, there hadn't been a totaleclipse of the moon or anything like that. People justdidn't bother to show up and vote. Ah Democracy!!

And yes, Phil and I did make a point of gettingout to vote. We always do.

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Well, it's gettingon and I've got chores to doand candy to put out and special treat bags to makeup for any trick or treaters who show up at ourdoor this evening for Halloween.

Hope you're all having a great Fall and enjoyingany festivities that might be occurring in yourneighborhood this weekend to celebrate Halloween.

Thanks for dropping by and leaving youralways welcome and greatly appreciated and enjoyedcomments.

Love your shot of the robin! I saw one in the front yard this morning and I don't know why he's hanging around here since we don't have any tempting berries for him.Quaker Halloween looks awesome! Now I'm really tempted to start mine. You're right, I should never have checked out those photos before dinner. Now I'm really starved!!

I loved the 'friday night knitting club' and there is a followup also . The Robin is beautiful and love your new start on the Halloween Quaker.Wow the food! Your new camera has taken you to a lot of great places!Looking forward to our visit!

It is great to be able to catch up with you again Judy - your blog is one of several that my old computer won't let me access. So I came across the room to my husband's laptop and here I am! I guess I'll have to give in soon and get myself a new computer..I was interested to read about your elections. In Australia it is compulsory for everyone over 18 to vote at all elections - Federal, State and Local council. I often wonder what it would be like if it wasn't compulsory...would we have the same government and the same people??

I will read it again with greater care, but for now, after showing the pictures of the pies (and the rest)to Rui, both of us have to go to the kitchen and eat something. And it has to be something sweet. Love the Robin and all the rest. Have to talk more about books... Not enough good second hand around here!!!HugsPaula (on my way to eat something sweet :-) )

Your warning was justified - after reading your post and looking at all the yummy pictures I went and had a second breakfast, something sweet of course, lol. And now I'm back for a comment. Thanks for the wonderful report (and pictures of course) about your visit at the Mennonite Fall Fair.Yes, we defintely have fall here, too. All the migratory birds that spend the warmer seasons in our region have disappeared. But not all that rest here for a while coming from Sacndinavia and flying down to Southern Europe have already appeared.Your Halloween Quaker looks gorgeous with its many Halloweeny details.I always love to see your book recommendations because there is always at least one book among them that attracts my attention and lands on my wish list. It's not that I'm short of unread books, no, lol. But it's like with stash - you can't have enough, lol.

Oh my! Look at all the pie!!!! I've never heard of deep fried rosettes before but my keyboard is wet from all my drooling ;o) OMG...now apple fritters with maple syrup???? You're KILLING me here! Good thing you did a lot of walking ;o)